02 August 2010

Bike Hire Scheme: Initial figures prove... er, something

TfL have just published a few figures about the Bike Hire Scheme's first weekend:• 21,000 people were signed up for membership as of 4pm Sunday• There were 6,403 journeys on Friday; 5,364 on Saturday; and 2,485 by 4pm Sunday• The top hire site on Friday was Bankside Mix (81) followed by Newgate St, St Paul's (59)• The top hire site on Saturday was Wardour St (88) followed by Hop Exchange, Borough (71)• There are 315 docking stations live, with 5,000 bikes available

They don't say how many of those 5,000 bikes have dodgy rear wheels thanks to overtightened brakes. (I'd guess about 2,000 from my experience.) But the above figures conclusively prove the scheme has got off to a superb start.

Or possibly that it's a bit rubbish. I don't know what to compare them with. But whatever the case, they no doubt prove you were right all along.

Anyway, you can probably guess the location of the docking station pictured.

21 comments:

That is less than one trip per 1000 inhabitants of London, even less if you count all the tourists and shoppers in London. The scheme will make no measurable difference to modal split in London as a whole, and at those rates not even in central London. And apparently each bike is used about once a day, a low rate given the investment. So by what standard is it a success?

Note that if the scheme is used only by a core of regular users, it would be cheaper to abandon it, and give them each a free bike. The total cost of £140 million would buy a lot of bikes...

Therefore the take-up of the scheme needs to increase by something like 1000% before it meets TFL's expectations. It hasn't come fully online yet - 'casual' users don't get a chance until next month - but it's not a promising start.

Therefore the take-up of the scheme needs to increase by something like 1000% before it meets TFL's expectations. It hasn't come fully online yet - 'casual' users don't get a chance until next month - but it's not a promising start.

Hey, Anonymous, why don't you give us a name so we know which of you whingers is which? Gets terrible confusing otherwise...

I think, three days in to the scheme and not yet fully operational, it might be a little premature to be judging whether or not the scheme is a success or not. You're clearly a glass half empty kinda guy (or are you a gal? Who knows?) whereas I'm more of a 'lets just wait and see shall we' sort of a chap.

Spelt Chou En-lai, he's a character in the excellent 1987 John Adams opera Nixon in China, which theatricalises the historic 1972 meeting between China and the US. He's the most admirable character in the opera in many ways, compared to the strident and arrogant Mao, vain and feckless Nixon, dreamy Pat Nixon, and witchy Mrs Mao.

Towards the end, it's clear the meeting has produced nothing of value except press soundbites. As Adams's musical language breaks out of the pop-diatonic modality of minimalism, into the bittersweet bitonality of minor-chord-plus-major-seventh, Chou En-lai poignantly reflects 'How much of what we did was good?'.

I would be very disappointed if I could not be put in charge of the carping chorus.

While I think a bike hire scheme is a good idea, 'Anonymous' is I think correct to think that this one will not significantly transform London's low cycling modal share. No version of vehicular cycling is going to get the masses cycling. And now that the ConDems have put petrolheads in charge of transport policy and road safety, exposure to risk on the part of cyclists seems likely to grow, which will help to suppress the willingness to cycle that undoubtedly exists but which won't manifest until the infrastructure is there.

Boris Johnson says: "Just three days into our cycle hire scheme we're seeing Londoners embracing the freedom of pedal power and are signing up in their droves. Our 21,000 pioneering members have already made more than 14,000 journeys since we launched on Friday. With every new day, these gleaming machines are transforming our streets and are putting us well on our way to becoming the best big cycling city in the world."

That is of course nonsense. 99.7% of the population are not members. And Boris suggests that 21,000 are still members, but if they bought 24-hour membership only, then many have already ceased to be. The relevant figure is how many people are members at any one time, on average.

The second relevant figure is: how many trips were made in Greater London in the same 3-day period, by all modes? 15 million? 30 Million? That makes 14,000 cycle trips seem much less significant. TfL must have figures on modal split in central London, and they must have a prognosis for this scheme's impact on that modal split, so why not ask for it?

Without that figure, there is no basis for any claim about transformative effects.

In case anyone's wondering, I'm not "anonymous". However, it's good to see that someone else is looking at the numbers, as they simply don't add up for this scheme.

The hire bikes simply don't have enough capacity to make any great difference. That's why it can never be "a success" if you're interested in modal share. You don't need to wait for the scheme to be better established in order to be able to perform these simple calculations.

One correction: You estimate of the total number of trips made in London is a bit low. The London Urban area has around 8 million people. They'll make on average about 2.5 - 2.8 "trips" per day each (this is roughly the same anywhere in the world - to work and back again counts as two "trips"), meaning at least 20 million trips per day are made by Londoners, or at least 60 million trips over three days.

14000 hire bike trips out of the total of 60 million shows that around 0.02% of the modal share in London over those three days was the hire bikes.

Any transformation is indeed a very very long way of.

London doesn't actually have a shortage of bikes. There are already plenty of bikes in London, but many of them permanently stay in sheds because people are simply too scared to ride them.

It's true that 5000 bikes even if they generate 8 trips per day each won't transform the capital's transport system.However, to be fair, it's a start. Rome wasn't built in a day. More bikes and docking stations can be added, and the scheme can be extended into the 'burbs, which is the intention.The scheme may also have beneficial side-effects. People may start to perceive cycling as a viable, mainstream transport mode. Peoples' prejudices about cycling and cyclists may be challenged. People may try the hire bikes, and find they like cycling.There's also another, more sinister effect. There will be crashes. People will get injured and die. But because these are ordinary people on hire bikes, it's more likely to make the headlines, and more likely to generate the political conditions to take action to make cycling safer.

Crossrider is right. My first experience of a dock was a suited businessman trying a bike for the first time in 20 years. He wobbled away for the price of a key and modest access charge. He may give up - or go on to be a regular user, nay, even consider getting/re-enabling his own. Overall a gain to the cause.

It opens up a whole new niche in access to cycling - doing it in suits and frocks. That's the only proven route to mass urban cycling.

Re - Rob on the 2nd of August - Graeme Danby has lost a lot of weight recently - some kind of padding may be necessary for him to play Boris ! However - love the idea of the Opera - any composers around who would like to take on the challenge?